414150 - SUMO needs to add obvious links for Theme and Extension support

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(support.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[Giles Newpane]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11
Build Identifier: NA

Theme and extension authors are responsible for the support of their products.  In some cases, NoScript for example, this is vital.  

Currently, there is not an obvious way to reach the authors from SUMO.  A clearly marked link from SUMO to the Extension/Theme Releases forum at mozillazine should be provided.   

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[David Tenser [:djst]]

This is filed under the Forum component. Did you mean for this to be visible on all pages, or just in the forum?

Comment 2

[Giles Newpane]

I would suggest a link on the SUMO entry pages.  Ideally, this would direct users to the proper area before they asked a specific theme or extension question on SUMO.

Comment 3

[David Tenser [:djst]]

The problem here is that users normally don't know whether or not a problem they're having is related to an add-on, or Firefox itself. What people usually search for is the symptoms of the problem.

What we decided was to create articles that allow people to diagnose whether or not a problem is caused by an add-on, and instruct the user how to disable it.

What we *could* do is adding a general "Add-ons Support" page that explains our support position for add-ons. "We do not provide support for extensions on Firefox Support. For extension and theme support, go to the support site for the specific add-on." However, I doubt this would be of any real help for users, since they will likely not know if their problems is caused by an add-on anyway.

Relevant article: http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Troubleshooting+add-ons

Comment 4

[Giles Newpane]

[quote]
The problem here is that users normally don't know whether or not a problem
they're having is related to an add-on, or Firefox itself. What people usually
search for is the symptoms of the problem.
[/quote]


True, but a quick look the first ten threads at Extension/Theme Releases shows that a good number of folks do know that the information they need can be found by asking the developer a question  You are basically adding an unnecessary support step for many folks.    

Comment 5

[David Tenser [:djst]]

What threads do you mean?

Comment 6

[Laura Thomson :laura]

This is part of AMO support which is being handled through GS for now - we're inclined to WONTFIX.  Nick?

Comment 7

[James Socol [:jsocol, :james]]

Based on comment 6 ;)

Actually this is going to be wrapped up in the new UX work, I suspect.